Saturday, October 23, 2010

Journalists that write that a tiny speck of plutonium inhaled into a lung will certainly cause cancer are wrong. It's also wrong to say that a small amount of plutonium introduced into a water supply would endanger large populations. Health physicist whose job it is to deal with radiation exposures say that plutonium is no worse than other more common naturally occurring elements like radium and thorium. In order to receive a dose of plutonium with a toxic effect one would have to be within a few meters of the source. Further away and wind and air turbulence would rapidly dilute any aerosol. As far as water is concerned, plutonium would settle out quickly in any body of water and the gut doens't absorb plutonium very well anyway. Out of 26 workers who were exposed to plutonium during the days of the Manhattan Project only one developed a cancer that could be related to his exposure. Most lived quite well into their eighties. Oil fields and coal minest are much more dangerous.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Congress could declare all personal assets hidden in tax havens as de facto tax evasion. Forcing this money into the open and back onshore would generate tens of billions in tax revenues that would fall exclusively on the richest fraction of Americans. Meanwhile, Republicans would look foolish trying to argue that taxing funds already held offshore would hurt U.S. job creation.

Could lifting the lid on campaign financing be a good thing? If theleft stays upfront about its financing and the right chooses to hide,the fact of that hiding might be good political fodder. Unlike the right, progressive donors are not afraid to be counted. We don't fear hypothetical attacks. We are already under assault.

Before I've noted that life itself may be inevitable given earth-like conditions. Now this article proposes that complex life may indeed be quite rare. That's because somewhere in the past one primitive organism captured another and turned it into a power supply. Once freed from producing its own energy, the organism became free to kick evolution into high gear.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the recession.In this Business Week article the author refers to a Federal Reserve report that lists 5 causes of the crash. None of those causes were action by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As the housing bubble grew, their position in the market became smaller and smaller. Most of the market was going to private institutions. It seems that the loans being generated failed to meet Fannie and Freddie standards. They can't take subprime loans by law. As they watched their market share fall they eventually began to play follow the leader by relaxing their requirements where they could. And in the end they were forced by market pressure to take loans that never should have been taken by anyone.

Without common sense regulation it is the nature of markets to have boom and bust cycles. The root cause is the human factor in that any manager who acts responsibly while the competition appears to be making huge profits as it heads toward a cliff finds himself without a job. In our system, profits are rewarded and prudence is usually punished.

Here are 9 stories that are not receiving enough press attention.1. The high amount of mortgage fraud that led to the recession2. The way accounting tricks were consciously used to give the appearance of higher profits leading to higher bonuses.3. The lack of prosecutions for any of this fraud.4. The second level of fraud caused when bad ethics made it impossible for firms with good ethics to compete.5. The fraud in the foreclosure processes.6. The massive coverup of losses on bad assets.7. The absence of effective regulation even now.8. Thue shaky positions of state and local governments and how bad the shortened stimulus is slow the recovery, employment, and vital services.9. The acceptance of massive long-term unemployment.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

The worst man-made disaster was the chemical explosion at Bhopal. It killed 3,849 outright and left 100,000 disabled. Yet no one has called for a moratorium on building chemical plants. Dam failures in the US has killed more people outright than Chernobyl did.

If you want to protect yourself from radiation, stop smoking. Living next to a coal plant will give you more radiation than living next to a nuclear plant.

Monday, October 04, 2010

Arguably, this shouldn't be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.

I do not believe for a second that the GOP of Palin and Boehner and Beck and DeMint represents anything but more debt, more war, more social division and more denial about the deeply serious problems this country faces and the profound dangers that are metastasizing in the world. I have no love for the Democrats but I do fervently believe that this president's record is far better than many now fashionably claim, that his inheritance was beyond awful, and I am not giving up on this president's immense task now, and neither, in my judgment, should any of those who voted for him in 2008.

By any number of measures, the stimulus is proving successful. It has efficiently met its goals and even done more than originally planned. So can we stop talking about it as if it were evil incarnate? No. That would be just too rational.

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QOTD

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.--Oscar Wilde

In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations. --Iroquois Confederacy Maxim

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. --Barack Obama

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. --Barack Obama

Countless lives were saved when I decided not to become a nurse. --Mildred Walton

The secret to a long marriage is to take care of your health.--Mildred Walton